We Awaken

by Calista Lynne

  This was excruciating.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. I doubt you go around grilling every gay boy on the street about his sex life just to make super sure he isn’t heterosexual. Look, you’re straight.”

  “Indeed I am,” Ellie drawled out, her ice cream now deliquescing where it sat on the floor.

  “And when did you figure that out?”

  “S’pose I’ve always known. Guess in the sixth grade when I wanted to unwrap Clayton Hino instead of his Oreos was the true kicker.”

  “And how do you know you’re straight if you’ve never slept with a girl?”

  “Because I’m not gay. It’s that easy. I don’t find girls attractive like that.”

  Understanding seemed to be growing in Ellie with that statement. She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “I think you’re starting to catch on,” I told her proudly, crawling over to save the Twizzlers. “That’s the way I feel about sex with anyone.”

  “Okay, but you were totally in a relationship with a girl.”

  “Yeah. I liked her. I still do. It was romantic.”

  “And you never had sex?”

  “Nope.”

  “And you were okay with that? Both of you?”

  “Yup. It’s literally that easy.”

  “Hmmm….” Ellie was thinking over the words. “I’m not going to pretend to understand but I’m getting there. Whatever makes you happy, I suppose. You deserve that much by now.” She cleared her throat and picked up the ice cream again. “Sorry about the shouting,” she mumbled.

  “Try to not do it again.”

  “I still don’t know what happened to your arm candy. If your plan was to distract me, it succeeded.”

  “You’ve already gotten enough emotional admissions out of me for one day. Can’t we deal with this later? She’s gone.”

  Ellie must have felt guilty because she just nodded and agreed. We had no more in-depth girl conversations that night. Instead she rolled out of her chair/bed hammock and began prepping for the night. Every winter blanket that her mother stored in the basement was thrown onto the floor next to her bed for me to mold into a sleeping bag of some sort. Lying all the way on the floor, the only part of Ellie I could see was her foot in the air.

  She was more somber than usual as we tried to resume our roles as average teenage friends, ones I’m not sure we ever filled to begin with. We watched the SVU marathon for hours, complaining about how they were only showing recent episodes. It must have been past two in the morning when she convinced me to climb to the top of her stairs and shut out all the lights, and with “criminal offenses considered especially heinous” playing in the background, I drifted off to sleep.

  Seventeen

  ON THE floor in the basement of a house I only pretended to be comfortable in, a carnival was moving in slow motion through my head. A massive tent stretched out around me, tinting the light pink as it filtered through red stripes. The makings of an elaborate circus act were being arranged directly beneath the pointed center. Sluggish elephants and trapeze artists in diamond-print harlequin spandex inched along tightropes at a pace so slow it would be impossible to imitate. Striped hoops stood upright on the dirt floor and the remnants of what seemed to be a juggling act were littered around the bases they stood on.

  There were rows and rows of children watching everything, frozen in place with enraptured expressions and eyes locked on the action. No one towered over them. This world was muted, but I didn’t notice until a sound was finally made in contrast.

  “I’ve missed you,” said a low voice from over my shoulder. A voice that was foggy and whimsical, full of memory.

  Ashlinn.

  I found myself flat on my back before she even got the second word out, and she walked around to stand over me, then offered a hand to help me up. Still, I did not move from the ground.

  “Are you really there?” I whispered.

  She nodded, seeming on edge, like a teenager from a caffeine-free family after their first Starbucks. Undoubtedly she had something urgent to say or do, but I was too busy staring to bother asking. Beginning with the legs I was eye level with, I began scanning her body. The dusky cloak had returned as well as the umbrella. Her eyes were the last thing I met mine with, and there was an electric current in hers. How was this possible?

  She left me. How could she visit Ellie and not me.

  A part of me wanted her to feel a tiny bit guilty, even though there was little blame and we needed to share it. Instead I just apologized. If anyone needed to absolve themselves of guilt, it was me.

  “I am so sorry,” I croaked out, and meant every word more than a lot of things I’d spoken before.

  She sat on her knees, then pulled me into a hug. My arms were still limp at my sides, so it was less of an embrace and more having my face crushed into her chest as I attempted to force my sense of smell to begin functioning through sheer willpower.

  “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

  She kept repeating those words like a mantra, and I absorbed them willingly, yearning to believe everything.

  When she began to pull back, I lifted my arms to grab her, refusing to be released.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, the first of many questions I didn’t want to ruin the moment with but felt compelled to ask. Her cloak was hardly tangible beneath my fingers, yet I still rubbed her back.

  “Doing what I’ve always done. Everything has returned to normal. Hopefully you’ve seen, and it’s all for the best. People are dreaming of pleasant things as well as the bad.”

  “Except for me,” I whispered with a poorly disguised note of malice.

  “Except for you. I haven’t been strong enough to visit you, knowing I couldn’t let you see I was there controlling your fantasies, but I did strike a deal with Semira. She shouldn’t bother you too much anymore. It’s an apology. You see, if I don’t give you good dreams, it doesn’t matter if she undoes the nightmares because there is still a balance. Those vile images will never haunt you again.”

  Now I did pull back, although I kept my hands on her airy wrists.

  “I’ll take those ugly things if I can still see you. Semira is sick, and I do not mean that in the good way. I want you to feel comfortable around me and now I’m not sure how you possibly could. I would never do those things we saw in the mirrors. I can’t even imagine it.”

  “I know.”

  “Then,” I began meekly, staring at her dress and not her eyes, “where have you been? I think I could live with a lifetime of only seeing you when I’m asleep if you could still stay a part of my life.”

  “And what kind of life would that be? One where reality seems less important than the time you spend unconscious? You could get hooked on sleeping pills. Victoria, you deserve a life like everyone else and the ability to chase more dreams than the ones locked away in your head. I let you go because I love you, and I’m trying to not be selfish anymore.”

  If this was her idea of a breakup note, I couldn’t handle it. In my eyes she was masking her abandonment as care. Not to mention this was the second time she had given me the gift of that four-lettered L-word while I still hadn’t returned the favor, but this time I couldn’t accept it sweetly.

  “There’s no need to coddle me. Shockingly enough, I am capable of chasing both you and my dreams, two things that have become intertwined in more ways than one. Let me watch out for myself. Obviously you’ve been trying, but that ridiculous plan of yours to avoid me hasn’t been working out too hot considering you’re here in my dream.”

  “That’s the thing,” she stated, “this isn’t your dream.”

  I looked around at the fantastical setting. There was an elephant standing on its front legs not eight feet from where we were pretzeled together on the floor.

  “What is it? This sure as hell isn’t reality.”

  “This is your brother’s dream.”

  Her gaze on me was unwavering and all my
muscles locked in place.

  “What?” I asked, no louder than one would speak in a silent church.

  “I may have figured out a compromise, a way we can be together.”

  Her words were thrilling, but I was still in too much shock for them to truly sink in. She continued.

  “But your brother comes into it. Reeves has a big decision, and he asked to speak to you before making it. I beckoned you to this world I created for him, much in the way I brought Semira to your dream, although the consequences of the nightmares she created were probably much more troublesome than this will prove to be.”

  “Where is my brother? What does he have to do with this?”

  Ashlinn stood up. She brushed off the front of her dress although it was perfectly clean and shook her umbrella before positioning it higher up on her arm, which she then stretched down to help me up.

  “I’ll take you to him now,” she said as I accepted her hand.

  The butterflies in my stomach were not from her touch but the thought of seeing Reeves. The concept was so intimidating I almost forgot to be excited. What if he was disappointed in me? He could be different from how I remembered; seeing him in the hospital had caused enough reevaluation of the last year as it was.

  Ashlinn and I walked past the continual lines of motionless children when I noticed movement among their frozen faces. Several rows down, all the way in the front, a brown-haired head was bobbing on a bench. I released Ashlinn’s hand to sprint toward my brother. It could be no one else.

  The distance between us shrank at a greater pace than what I was running at, and soon I was on my knees in front of where he was sitting. His eyes were actually open. I placed my hands on his shoulders.

  “Oh my God.”

  He looked angelic. In the hospital his freckles had faded, but now they blossomed all over his skin in constellation patterns. Reeves’s hair was an absolute mess, sticking off his head in every direction, and he was grinning like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing than watch me fall apart at his feet.

  “Hey, sis,” he said loudly. Actually, it may have been a normal volume, but to my ears his voice was thunderous. My arms were shaking where they lay on his shoulders and my heart was on the verge of vibrating right out of the rib cage it was trapped inside.

  “I have missed you. So much.”

  I had told Ashlinn the same thing, but this held a completely different meaning. His smile grew into the one he wore whenever I’d trip across the floor or spill something. At this moment I was willing to take any joy at my own expense if it meant he would keep grinning. I had forgotten how pronounced his dimples became when truly overjoyed, like that time he got a participation trophy for baseball. Dad told him it meant he was voted best player, and Reeves spoke of nothing else for days.

  “I’ve missed you too. An accident, huh? And Dad’s dead? It doesn’t seem real. I’m almost happy I can’t remember it. Not really, though, because the whole thing has been driving me nuts. It must’ve been superhard for you guys, seriously, but Ashlinn has told me lots of things, and it’s time to let go,” he said, and I began to remove my hands from his shoulders. He just shook his head.

  “Not literally. I mean you and Mom need to move on. So do I. Ashlinn’s tried to explain things to me, but I’m more than a little mixed up about this whole situation. Still, she’s been really nice. When I think about Dad and get upset, she always seems to be there.”

  He nodded in her direction. She was standing a good distance from us, pretending to be preoccupied by a lady on stilts slowly raising one leg.

  “She really does love you,” he continued conspiratorially. “I almost got tired of hearing about how fantastic and interesting you are all the time. It’s kinda gross.”

  Now why couldn’t Ellie be more like that? His perception of our “grossness” had nothing to do with our sexualities—I doubt he even cared we were both girls—but instead because my girlfriend thought I was great.

  I finally spoke to him again. “At least you haven’t been lonely. I’m really happy about that. From the outside it doesn’t look like you’re having the most interesting time.”

  “Is it bad?” he asked, losing the joyful attitude.

  “What?”

  “Me. In the coma. How do I look?”

  Oh, you know, half-dead and ghostlike. Immobile. It breaks Mother’s heart.

  “It looks like you’re sleeping, that’s all.”

  That smile returned.

  “Good. I might forget that soon, but it’s nice to know. Only the important things seem to stick in my memory. For example,” he began, as if reciting vocab words, “I know I’m in a coma and that I love you and Mom and Dad. But Dad is dead and I’m allowed to be sad about it. I know that Ashlinn is my closest friend. Everything’s been sort of—” He paused, searching for a word, then snapped his fingers when he found it. “—gooey. This dreaming is a bit strange for me, but she says there’s a way I can un-goo everything and move on. If I do it, you two will be able to spend your lives together and do coupley stuff.”

  There was no hint of a lie in his eyes, and God knows I’d be good at detecting that from our childhood together.

  “How?” I asked, urging him to continue. “I’ll do whatever it is.”

  “You won’t have to do anything from the sound of it. See, there’s always gotta be someone to make the good dreams. When Ashlinn became human everything was dark for me, and apparently the rest of the world wasn’t having a much better time. There’s nothing that says the person who breaks into people’s minds has to be your girlfriend. We can have a sandman instead, just like the fairy tale.”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” I asked warily, picking those words with care.

  “I can do it.” He lit up as he spoke, his body rigid with excitement. “I can take over for Ashlinn. She’ll make me a cloak and train me and when we’re through, I don’t have to be trapped in this head of mine any longer. I’ll be able to jump from dream to dream and eavesdrop on everyone’s secrets.”

  I wanted to speak, but there were no words to say, not that I would have been able to get them out in the monologue he was still continuing.

  “I’ll make the best dreams ever for the both of you, and for Mom too.”

  As he began to list off the things he expected to find in the heads of others, I looked at Ashlinn over my shoulder. When she caught my eye I beckoned to her. His happiness was becoming contagious, but I didn’t want to believe everything for fear of getting my hopes up and having it all turn out to be impossible.

  “Is what he’s saying true?” I asked when she appeared at my side.

  “Yes, but there’s a side effect.”

  That was never a good sign. This was turning into a good news/ bad news situation, and I gulped in anticipation.

  “Side effect?”

  Reeves was quiet now, watching the exchange with a hopeful expression still plastered on his face.

  “He can’t stay in the coma.”

  “Well, I don’t think he can get out of it. Believe me, I’ve wanted nothing more for the past year.”

  “No, he can’t get out of it.” She was speaking like someone attempting to placate a dog they just kicked. “Reeves’s body will die if he does this.”

  “No!” I shouted. “It would destroy my mother if he died. He’s here right now, and he’s not dead.” I looked back and forth between them anxiously. “Can’t you give him some of your magical voodoo crap now and let us carry on as is?”

  “There’s a reason I had to pick between my human and dream forms. Living people are not free to walk between dreams. Imagine all the messes you guys would get into if that were possible. I have that freedom, and the ability to bring others along, but only those of us without physical forms for our minds to cling to can do such things.”

  Reeves touched my arm, and although his grasp was just as nonexistent as Ashlinn’s, it managed to get my attention.

  “I don’t want anyone to waste t
heir lives sitting next to a hospital bed, and I don’t want to be lying in one all that much either. I know you said Mom’s doing okay, but it can’t be all that easy.” I hadn’t heard a voice so uncertain since the accident.

  “I don’t want to go to another funeral.”

  My throat felt as if it were stuffed with cotton balls. Those words made me feel selfish, but they were the truth. Reeves didn’t understand how Dad’s funeral had been surreal; it was like an out-of-body experience, and I wanted to tear at my flesh just so I’d have something real to blame the pain on. It wasn’t an event I cared to repeat, and Reeves didn’t even know I’d had to deal with that already. They say I stood and stared at my father’s bolted-shut casket until I was dragged away.

  Reeves was looking at me imploringly, with large, childish eyes, and I hated that this was my decision to make.

  “You can’t possibly want to die. Aren’t you frightened?”

  “No. It won’t be death, not really. If anything, it’s immortality. Like a superpower.”

  “Will you be happier than you are now?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation.

  “Will I ever see you?”

  “Definitely.”

  Well, that’s something. I had never expected to see him again in this lifetime. If anything, this would only improve our relationship, but I couldn’t get past the thought of his lungs giving up and him lying there, cold and unmoving. Dad devoid of life was one thing; this was another. Undoubtedly both images would never be erased from my memory, and on top of it all, it just seemed so unfair to Mother. She would never know that he wasn’t truly dead.

  No. It was time for me to dabble in not being selfish, to continue following Ashlinn’s lead and do what would make my brother happiest. God knows he deserved it.

  “It’s your life. You have my blessing to try and be happy. You know how to make your own decisions.”

  He threw his arms around me in triumph and his expression must have been awfully entertaining judging by Ashlinn’s laughter behind me.